On the appearance of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's three articles
in the Modern Review of Calcutta, I received a number of
letters from Muslims of different shades of religious and
political opinion. Some writers of these letters want me to
further elucidate and justify the attitude of the Indian Muslims
towards the Ahmadis. Others ask me what exactly I regard as the
issue involved in Ahmadism. In this statement I propose first to
meet these demands which I regard as perfectly legitimate, and
then to answer the questions raised by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. I
fear, however, that parts of this statement may not interest the
Pandit, and to save his time I suggest that he may skip over such
parts.

It is hardly necessary for me to say that I welcome the
Pandit's interest in what I regard as one of the greatest problems
of the East and perhaps of the whole world. He is, I believe, the
first nationalist Indian leader who has expressed a desire to
understand the present spiritual unrest in the world of Islam. In
view of the many aspects and possible reactions of this unrest, it
is highly desirable that thoughtful Indian political leaders
should open their mind to the real meaning of what is, at the
present moment, agitating the heart of Islam.

I do not wish, however, to conceal the fact, either from the
Pandit or from any other reader of this statement, that the
Pandit's articles have for the moment given my mind rather a
painful conflict of feelings. Knowing him to be a man of wide
cultural sympathies, my mind cannot but incline to the view that
his desire to understand the questions he has raised, is perfectly
genuine; yet the way in which he has expressed himself betrays a
psychology which I find difficult to attribute to him. I am
inclined to think that my statement on Qadianism — no more than a
mere exposition of a religious doctrine on modern lines — has
embarrassed both the Pandit and the Qadianis, perhaps because both
inwardly resent, for different reasons, the prospects of Muslim
political and religious solidarity particularly in India. It is
obvious that the Indian nationalist whose political idealism has
practically killed his sense for fact, is intolerant of the birth
of a desire for self-determination in the heart of North-West
Indian Islam.

He thinks, wrongly in my opinion, that the only way to Indian
nationalism lies in a total suppression of the cultural entities
of the country through the interaction of which alone India can
evolve a rich and enduring culture. A nationalism achieved by such
methods can mean nothing but mutual bitterness and even
oppression. It is equally obvious that the Qadianis, too, feel
nervous by the political awakening of the Indian Muslims, because
they feel that the rise in political prestige of the Indian
Muslims is sure to defeat their designs to carve out from the
Ummat of the Arabian Prophet a new Ummat for the Indian
prophet. It is no small surprise to me that my effort to impress
on the Indian Muslims the extreme necessity of internal cohesion
in the present critical moment of their history in India, and my
warning them against the forces of disintegration, masquerading as
reformist movements, should have given the Pandit an occasion to
sympathize with such forces.

However, I do not wish to pursue the unpleasant task of
analyzing the Pandit's motives. For the benefit of those who want
further elucidation of the general Muslim attitude towards the
Qadianis, I would quote a passage from Durant's Story of
Philosophy which, I hope, will give the reader a clearer idea of
the issue involved in Qadianism. Durant has in a few sentences
summed up the Jewish point of view in the excommunication of the
great philosopher Spinoza. The reader must not think that in
quoting this passage I mean to insinuate some sort of comparison
between Spinoza and the founder of Ahmadism. The distance between
them, both in point of intellect and character, is simply
tremendous. The "God-intoxicated" Spinoza never claimed that he
was the centre of a new organization and that all the Jews who did
not believe in him were outside the pale of Judaism. Durant's
passage, therefore, applies with much greater force to the
attitude of Muslims towards Qadianism than to the attitude of the
Jews towards the excommunication of Spinoza. The passage is as
follows:

"Furthermore, religious unanimity seemed to the elders their
sole means of preserving the little Jewish group in Amsterdam from
disintegration, and almost the last means of preserving the unity,
and so ensuring the survival, of the scattered Jews of the world.
If they had had their own state, their own civil law, their own
establishments of secular force and power, to compel internal
cohesion and external respect, they might have been more tolerant;
but their religion was to them their patriotism as well as their
faith; the synagogue was their centre of social and political life
as well as of ritual and worship; and the Bible whose veracity
Spinoza had impugned was the 'portable fatherland' of their
people; under the circumstances they thought heresy was treason,
and toleration suicide."

Situated as the Jews were — a minority community in
Amsterdam — they were perfectly justified in regarding Spinoza as a
disintegrating factor threatening the dissolution of their
community. Similarly, the Indian Muslims are right in regarding the
Qadiani movement, which declares the entire world of Islam as Kafir and socially boycotts them, to be far more dangerous to
the collective life of Islam in India than the metaphysics of
Spinoza to the collective life of the Jews.

The Indian Muslim, I believe, instinctively realizes the
peculiar nature of the circumstances in which he is placed in
India and is naturally much more sensitive to the forces of
disintegration than the Muslims of any other country. This
instinctive perception of the average Muslim is in my opinion absolutely
correct and has, I have no doubt, a much deeper foundation in the
conscience of Indian Islam. Those who talk of toleration in a
matter like this are extremely careless in using the word
"toleration" which, I fear, they do not understand at all. The
spirit of toleration may arise from very different attitudes of
the mind of man. As Gibbon would say: There is the toleration of
the philosopher to whom all religions are equally true; of the
historian to whom all are equally false; and of the politician to
whom all are equally useful. There is the toleration of the man
who tolerates other modes of thought and behavior because he has
himself grown absolutely indifferent to all modes of thought and
behavior. There is the toleration of the weak man who, on account
of sheer weakness, must pocket all kinds of insults heaped on
things or persons that he holds dear.

It is obvious that these
types of tolerance have no ethical value. On the other hand they
unmistakably reveal the spiritual impoverishment of the man who
practices them. True toleration is begotten of intellectual
breadth and spiritual expansion. It is the toleration of the
spiritually powerful man who, while jealous of the frontiers of
his own faith, can tolerate and even appreciate all forms of faith
other than his own. Of this type of toleration the true Muslim
alone is capable. His own faith is synthetic and for this reason
he can easily find grounds of sympathy and appreciation in other
faiths. Our great Indian poet, Amir Khusro, beautifully brings out
the essence of this type of toleration in the story of an
idol-worshipper. After giving an account of his intense attachment
to his idols, the poet addresses his Muslim readers as follows:

O you, who is accusing a Hindu of idolatry,
also learn the method of worship from him!

Only a true lover of God can appreciate the value of devotion,
even though it is directed to gods in which he himself does not
believe. The folly of our preachers of toleration consists in
describing the attitude of the man who is jealous of the
boundaries of his own faith as one of intolerance. They wrongly
consider this attitude as a sign of moral inferiority. They do not
understand that the value of his attitude is essentially
biological. Where the members of a group feel, either
instinctively or on the basis of rational argument, that the
corporate life of the social organism to which they belong is in
danger, their defensive attitude must be appraised in reference
mainly to a biological criterion. Every thought or deed in this
connection must be judged by the life-value that it may possess.
The question in this case is not whether the attitude of an
individual or community towards the man who is declared to be a
heretic is morally good or bad. The question is whether it is
life-giving or life-destroying.

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru seems to think that a society founded
on religious principles necessitates the institution of
Inquisition. This is indeed true of the history of Christianity;
but the history of Islam, contrary to the Pandit's logic, shows
that during the last thirteen hundred years of the life of Islam,
the institution of Inquisition has been absolutely unknown in
Muslim countries. The Qur'an expressly prohibits such an
institution: "Do not seek out the shortcomings of others, and carry
not tales against your brethren." (49:12) Indeed the Pandit will find from
the history of Islam that the Jews and Christians, fleeing from
religious persecution in their own lands, always found shelter in
the lands of Islam. The two propositions on which the conceptual
structure of Islam is based are so simple that it makes heresy in
the sense of turning the heretic outside the fold of Islam almost
impossible. It is true that when a person declared to be holding
heretical doctrines threatens the existing social order, an
independent Muslim State will certainly take action; but in such a
case the action of the State will be determined more by political
considerations than by purely religious ones. I can very well
realize that a man like the Pandit, who is born and brought up in
a society which has no well-defined boundaries and consequently no
internal cohesion, finds it difficult to conceive that a religious
society can live and prosper without State-appointed commissions
of inquiry into the beliefs of the people. This is quite clear
from the passage which he quotes from Cardinal Newman and wonders
how far I would accept the application of the Cardinal's dictum to
Islam. Let me tell him that there is a tremendous difference
between the inner structure of Islam and Catholicism wherein the
complexity, the ultra-rational character and the number of dogmas
has, as the history of Christianity shows, always fostered
possibilities of fresh heretical interpretations.

Allama Iqbal
London, 1932

The simple faith of Muhammad is based on two propositions — that
God is One, and that Muhammad is the last of the line of those
holy men who have appeared from time to time in all countries and
in all ages to guide mankind to the right way of living. If, as
some Christian writers think, a dogma must be defined as an
ultra-rational proposition which, for the purpose of securing
religious solidarity, must be assented to without any
understanding of its metaphysical import, then these two simple
propositions of Islam cannot be described even as dogmas; for both
of them are supported by the experience of mankind and are fairly
amenable to rational argument. The question of a heresy, which
needs the verdict whether the author of it is within or without
the fold, can arise, in the case of a religious society founded on
such simple propositions, only when the heretic rejects both or
either of these propositions. Such heresy must be and has been
rare in the history of Islam which, while jealous of its
frontiers, permits freedom of interpretation within these
frontiers. And since the phenomenon of the kind of heresy which
affects the boundaries of Islam has been rare in the history of
Islam, the feeling of the average Muslim is naturally intense when
a revolt of this kind arises. This is why the feeling of Muslim
Persia was so intense against the Bahais. That is why the feeling
of the Indian Muslims is so intense against the Qadianis.

It is true that mutual accusations of heresy for differences in
minor points of law and theology among Muslim religious sects have
been rather common. In this indiscriminate use of the word Kufr,
both for minor theological points of difference as well as for
the extreme cases of heresy, which involve the excommunication of
the heretic, some present-day educated Muslims, who possess
practically no knowledge of the history of Muslim theological
disputes, see a sign of social and political disintegration of the
Muslim community. This, however, is an entirely wrong notion. The
history of Muslim theology shows that mutual accusation of heresy
on minor points of difference has, far from working as a
disruptive force, actually given an impetus to synthetic
theological thought. "When we read the history of development of
Muhammadan Law," says Professor Hurgronje, "we find that, on the
one hand, the doctors of every age, on the slightest stimulus,
condemn one another to the point of mutual accusations of heresy;
and, on the other hand, the very same people with greater and
greater unity of purpose try to reconcile the similar quarrels of
their predecessors." The student of Muslim theology knows that
among Muslim legists this kind of heresy is technically known as
"heresy below heresy," i.e. the kind of heresy which does not
involve the excommunication of the culprit. It may be admitted,
however, that in the hands of mullahs whose intellectual
laziness takes all oppositions of theological thought as absolute
and is consequently blind to the unity in difference, this minor
heresy may become a source of great mischief. This mischief can be
remedied only by giving to the students of our theological schools
a clearer vision of the synthetic spirit of Islam, and by
reinitiating them into the function of logical contradiction as a
principle of movement in theological dialectic. The question of
what may be called "major heresy" arises only when the teaching of a
thinker or a reformer affects the frontiers of the faith of Islam.
Unfortunately, this question does arise in connection with the
teachings of Qadianism. It must be pointed out here that the
Ahmadi movement is divided into two camps, known as the Qadianis
and the Lahoris. The former openly declare the founder to be a
full prophet; the latter, either by conviction or policy, have
found it advisable to preach an apparently toned down Qadianism.
However, the question whether the founder of Ahmadism was a
prophet, the denial of whose mission entails what I call the "major
heresy", is a matter of dispute between the two sections. It is
unnecessary for my purposes to judge the merits of this domestic
controversy of the Ahmadis. I believe, for reasons to be explained
presently, that the idea of a full prophet whose denial entails
the denier's excommunication from Islam is essential to Ahmadism;
and that the present head of the Qadianis is far more consistent
with the spirit of the movement than the Imam of the Lahoris.

The cultural value of the idea of Finality in Islam, I have
fully explained elsewhere. Its meaning is simple: No spiritual
surrender to any human being after Muhammad, who emancipated his
followers by giving them a law which is realizable as arising from
the very core of human conscience. Theologically, the doctrine is
that the socio-political organization called "Islam" is perfect
and eternal. No revelation, the denial of which entails heresy, is
possible after Muhammad. He who claims such a revelation is a
traitor to Islam. Since the Qadianis believe the founder of the
Ahmadiyya movement to be the bearer of such a revelation, they
declare that the entire world of Islam is infidel. The founder's
own argument, quite worthy of a medieval theologian, is that the
spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam must be regarded as
imperfect if it is not creative of another prophet. He claims his
own prophethood to be an evidence of the prophet-rearing power of
the spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam. But if you further
ask him whether the spirituality of Muhammad is capable of rearing
more prophets than one, his answer is "No". This virtually amounts
to saying: "Muhammad is not the last Prophet: I am the last." Far
from understanding the cultural value of the Islamic idea of
Finality in the history of mankind generally and of Asia
especially, he thinks that finality in the sense that no follower
of Muhammad can ever reach the status of prophethood, is a mark of
imperfection in Muhammad's prophethood. As I read the psychology
of his mind he, in the interest of his own claim to prophethood,
avails himself of what he describes as the creative spirituality
of the Holy Prophet of Islam, and at the same time deprives the
Holy Prophet of his Finality by limiting the creative capacity
of his spirituality to the rearing of only one prophet, i.e, the
founder of the Ahmadiyya movement. In this way does the new
prophet quietly steal away the Finality of one whom he claims to
be his spiritual progenitor.

He claims to be a buruz of the Holy Prophet of Islam,
insinuating thereby that being a buruz of him, his
finality is virtually the Finality of Muhammad; and that this
view of the matter, therefore, does not violate, the Finality of
the Holy Prophet. In identifying the two finalities, his own and
that of the Holy Prophet, he conveniently loses sight of the
temporal meaning of the idea of Finality. It is, however, obvious
that the word buruz, in the sense even of "complete
likeness", cannot help him at all; for the buruz must always
remain the other side of its original. Only in the sense of
reincarnation, a buruz becomes identical with the original.
Thus if we take the word buruz to mean "like in spiritual
qualities" the argument remains ineffective; if, on the other
hand, we take it to mean "reincarnation of the original" in the
Aryan sense of the word, the argument becomes plausible; but its
author turns out to be only a Magian in disguise.

It is further claimed on the authority of the great Muslim
mystic, Muhyuddin Ibn al-'Arabi of Spain, that it is possible for a
Muslim saint to attain, in his spiritual evolution, to the kind of
experience characteristic of the prophetic consciousness. I
personally believe this view of Sheikh Muhyuddin Ibn al-'Arabi to be
psychologically unsound; but assuming it to be correct, the Qadiani
argument is based on a complete misunderstanding of his exact
position. The Sheikh regards it as a purely private achievement
which does not, and in the nature of things cannot, entitle such a
saint to declare that all those who do not believe in him are
outside the pale of Islam. Indeed, from the Sheikh's point of
view, there may be more than one saint, living in the same age or
country, who may attain to prophetic consciousness. The point to
be seized is that, while it is psychologically possible for a
saint to attain to prophetic experience, his experience will have
no socio-political significance, making him the center of a new
organization and entitling him to declare his organization to be
the criterion of the faith or disbelief of the followers of
Muhammad.

Leaving his mystical psychology aside, I am convinced from a
careful study of the relevant passages of the "Futuhat" that
the great Spanish mystic is as firm a believer in the Finality of
Muhammad as any orthodox Muslim. And if he had seen in his
mystical vision that one day in the East some Indian amateur in
Sufism would seek to destroy the Holy Prophet's Finality, under
the cover of his mystical psychology, he would have certainly
anticipated the Indian Ulama in warning the Muslims of the
world against such traitors to Islam.

II

Coming now to the essence of Ahmadism. A discussion of its
sources and of the way in which pre-Islamic Magian ideas have,
through the channels of Islamic mysticism, worked on the mind of
its author would be extremely interesting from the standpoint of
comparative religion. It is, however, impossible for me to
undertake this discussion here. Suffice it to say that the real
nature of Ahmadism is hidden behind the mist of medieval mysticism
and theology. The Indian Ulama, therefore, took it to be a
purely theological movement and came out with theological weapons
to deal with it. I believe, however, that this was not the proper
method of dealing with the movement; and that the success of the
Ulama was, therefore, only partial. A careful psychological
analysis of the revelations of the founder would perhaps be an
effective method of dissecting the inner life of his personality.
In this connection, I may mention Maulvi Manzur Elahi's collection
of the founder's revelations which offers rich and varied material
for psychological research. In my opinion the book provides a key
to the character and personality of the founder; and I do hope
that one day some young student of modern psychology will take it
up for serious study. If he takes the Qur'an for his criterion, as
he must for reasons which cannot be explained here, and extends
his study to a comparative examination of the experiences of the
founder of the Ahmadiyya movement and contemporary non-Muslim
mystics, such as Ram[a] Krishna of Bengal, he is sure to meet more
than one surprise as to the essential character of the experience
on the basis of which prophethood is claimed for the originator of
Ahmadism.

Another equally effective and more fruitful method, from the
standpoint of the plain man, is to understand the real content of
Ahmadism in the light of the history of Muslim theological thought
in India, at least from the year 1799. The year 1799 is extremely
important in the history of the world of Islam. In this year fell
Tippu, and his fall meant the extinguishment of Muslim hopes for
political prestige in India. In the same year was fought the
battle of Navarino which saw the destruction of the Turkish fleet.
Prophetic were the words of the author of the chronogram of
Tippu's fall which visitors of Serangapatam find engraved on the
wall of Tippu's mausoleum:

"Gone is the glory of Ind as well of Roum."

Thus, in the year 1799, the political decay of Islam in Asia
reached its climax. But just as out of the humiliation of Germany
on the day of Jena arose the modern German nation, it may be said
with equal truth that out of the political humiliation of Islam in
the year 1799 arose modern Islam and its problems. This point I
shall explain in the sequel. For the present I want to draw the
reader's attention to some of the questions which have arisen in
Muslim India since the fall of Tippu and the development of
European imperialism in Asia.

Does the idea of Caliphate in Islam embody a religious
institution? How are the Indian Muslims, and for the matter of
that all Muslims outside the Turkish Empire, related to the
Turkish Caliphate? Is India Dar-ul-Harb or Dar-ul-Islam?
What is the real meaning of the doctrine of Jihad in Islam?
What is the meaning of the expression "from amongst you" in the
Qur'anic verse: "Obey God, obey the Prophet and the masters of the
affair, i.e. rulers, from amongst you"? (4:59) What is the character of
the traditions of the Prophet foretelling the advent of Imam
Mahdi? These questions and some others which arose subsequently
were, for obvious reasons, questions for Indian Muslims only.
European imperialism, however, which was then rapidly penetrating
the world of Islam, was also intimately interested in them. The
controversies which these questions created form a most
interesting chapter in the history of Islam in India. The story is
a long one and is still waiting for a powerful pen.

Muslim politicians whose eyes were mainly fixed on the
realities of the situation succeeded in winning over a section of
the Ulama to adopt a line of theological arguments which, as
they thought, suited the situation; but it was not easy to conquer
by mere logic the beliefs which had ruled for centuries the
conscience of the masses of Islam in India. In such a situation
logic can either proceed on the ground of political expediency or
on the lines of a fresh orientation of texts and traditions. In
either case the argument will fail to appeal to the masses. To the
intensely religious masses of Islam only one thing can make a
conclusive appeal, and that is Divine Authority. For an effective
eradication of orthodox beliefs, it was found necessary to find a
revelational basis for a politically suitable orientation of
theological doctrines involved in the questions mentioned above.
This revelational basis is provided by Ahmadism. And the Ahmadis
themselves claim this to be the greatest service rendered by them
to British imperialism. The prophetic claim to a revelational
basis for theological views of a political significance amounts to
declaring that those who do not accept the claimant's views are
infidels of the first water and destined for the flames of Hell.
As I understand the significance of the movement, the Ahmadi
belief that Christ died the death of an ordinary mortal, and that
his second advent means only the advent of a person who is
spiritually "like unto him," gives the movement some sort of a
rational appearance; but they are not really essential to the
spirit of the movement. In my opinion they are only preliminary
steps towards the idea of full prophethood which alone can serve
the purposes of the movement, eventually brought into being by new
political forces. In primitive countries it is not logic but
authority that appeals. Given a sufficient amount of ignorance,
credulity which strangely enough sometimes coexists with good
intelligence, and a person sufficiently audacious to declare
himself a recipient of divine revelation, whose denial would entail
eternal damnation, it is easy, in a subject Muslim country, to
invent a political theology and to build a community whose creed
is political servility. And in the Punjab, even an ill-woven net
of vague theological expressions can easily capture the innocent
peasant who has been for centuries exposed to all kinds of
exploitation.

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru advises the orthodox of all religions
to unite and thus not to delay the coming of what he conceives to be
Indian Nationalism. This ironical advice assumes that Ahmadism is
a reform movement; he does not know that as far as Islam in India
is concerned, Ahmadism involves both religious and political
issues of the highest importance. As I have explained above, the
function of Ahmadism in the history of Muslim religious thought is
to furnish a revelational basis for India's present political
subjugation. Leaving aside the purely religious issues, on the
ground of political issues alone, I think it does not lie in the mouth of a
man like Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru to accuse Indian Muslims of
reactionary conservatism. I have no doubt that if he had grasped
the real nature of Ahmadism, he would have very much appreciated
the attitude of Indian Muslims towards a religious movement which
claims divine authority for the woes of India.

Thus the reader will see that the pallor of Ahmadism which we
find on the cheeks of Indian Islam today is not an abrupt
phenomenon in the history of Muslim religious thought in India.
The ideas which eventually shaped themselves in the form of this
movement became prominent in theological discussions long before
the founder of Ahmadism was born. Nor do I mean to insinuate that
the founder of Ahmadism and his companions deliberately planned
their programme. I dare say the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement
did hear a voice; but whether this voice came from the God of Life
and Power, or arose out of the spiritual impoverishment of the
people, must depend upon the nature of the movement which it has
created and the kind of thought and emotion which it has given to
those who have listened to it. The reader must not think that I am
using metaphorical language. The life-history of nations shows
that when the tide of life in a people begins to ebb, decadence
itself becomes a source of inspiration, inspiring their poets,
philosophers, saints, statesmen, and turning them into a class of
apostles whose sole ministry is to glorify, by the force of a
seductive art or logic, all that is ignoble and ugly in the life
of their people. These apostles unconsciously clothe despair in
the glittering garment of hope, undermine the traditional values
of conduct and thus destroy the spiritual virility of those who
happen to be their victims. One can only imagine the rotten state
of a people's will who are, on the basis of divine authority, made
to accept their political environment as final. Thus, all the
actors who participated in the drama of Ahmadism were, I think,
only innocent instruments in the hands of decadence. A similar
drama had already been acted in Persia; but it did not lead, and
could not have led, to the religious and political issues which
Ahmadism has created for Islam in India. Russia offered tolerance
to Babism and allowed the Babis to open their first missionary
center in Ishqabad. England showed Ahmadis the same tolerance in
allowing them to open their first missionary center in Woking.
Whether Russia and England showed this tolerance on the ground of
imperial expediency or pure broadmindedness is difficult for us to
decide. This much is absolutely clear, that this tolerance has
created difficult problems for Islam in Asia. In view of the
structure of Islam, as I understand it, I have not the least doubt
in my mind that Islam will emerge purer out of the difficulties
thus created for it. Times are changing. Things in India have
already taken a new turn. The new spirit of democracy which is
coming to India is sure to disillusion the Ahmadis and to convince
them of the absolute futility of their theological invention.

Nor will Islam tolerate any revival of medieval mysticism which
has already robbed its followers of their healthy instincts and
given them only obscure thinking in return. It has, during the
course of the past centuries, absorbed the best minds of Islam,
leaving the affairs of the state to mere mediocrities. Modern
Islam cannot afford to repeat the experiment. Nor can it tolerate
a repetition of the Punjab experiment of keeping Muslims occupied
for half a century in theological problems which had absolutely no
bearing on life. Islam has already passed into the broad daylight
of fresh thought and experience, and no saint or prophet can bring
it back to the fogs of medieval mysticism.

III

Let me now turn to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's questions. I fear
the Pandit's articles reveal practically no acquaintance with
Islam and its religious history during the 19th century. Nor does
he seem to have read what I have already written on the subject of
his questions. It is not possible for me to reproduce here all that I
have written before. Nor is it possible to write here a religious
history of Islam in the 19th century without which a thorough
understanding of the present situation in the world of Islam is
impossible. Hundreds of books and articles have been written on
Turkey and modern Islam. I have read most of this literature and
probably the Pandit has also read it. I assure him, however, that
not one of these writers understands the nature of the effect or of
the cause that has brought about that effect. It is, therefore,
necessary to indicate briefly the main currents of Muslim thought
in Asia during the 19th century.

I have said above that in the year 1799 the political decay of
Islam reached its climax. There can, however, be no greater
testimony to the inner vitality of Islam than the fact that it
practically took no time to realize its position in the world.
During the 19th century were born Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in India,
Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani in Afghanistan and Mufti Alam Jan in
Russia. These men were probably inspired by Muhammad Ibn Abdul
Wahab who was born in Najd in 1700, the founder of the so-called
Wahabi movement which may fitly be described as the first throb of
life in modern Islam. The influence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
remained on the whole confined to India. It is probable, however,
that he was the first modern Muslim to catch a glimpse of the
positive character of the age which was coming. The remedy for the
ills of Islam proposed by him, as by Mufti Alam Jan in Russia, was
modern education. But the real greatness of the man consists in
the fact that he was the first Indian Muslim who felt the need of
a fresh orientation of Islam and worked for it. We may differ from
his religious views, but there can be no denying the fact that his
sensitive soul was the first to react to the modern age.

The extreme conservatism of Indian Muslims which had lost its
hold on the realities of life, failed to see the real meaning of
the religious attitude of Syed Ahmad Khan. In the North-West of
India, a country more primitive and more saint-ridden than the rest
of India, the Syed's movement was soon followed by the reaction of
Ahmadism — a strange mixture of Semitic and Aryan mysticism, with
whom spiritual revival consists not in the purification of the
individual's inner life according to the principles of the old
Islamic Sufism, but in satisfying the expectant attitude of the
masses by providing a 'Promised' Messiah'. The function of this
'Promised Messiah' is not to extricate the individual from an
enervating present but to make him slavishly surrender his ego to
its dictates. This reaction carries within itself a very subtle
contradiction. It retains the discipline of Islam, but destroys
the will which that discipline was intended to fortify.

Maulana Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani was a man of a different
stamp. Strange are the ways of Providence. One of the most
advanced Muslims of our time, both in religious thought and
action, was born in Afghanistan! A perfect master of nearly all
the Muslim languages of the world and endowed with the most
winning eloquence, his restless soul migrated from one Muslim
country to another, influencing some of the most prominent men in
Persia, Egypt and Turkey. Some of the greatest theologians of our
time, such as Mufti Muhammad Abduhu, and some of the men of the
younger generation who later became political leaders, such as
Zaghlul Pasha of Egypt, were his disciples, He wrote little, spoke
much and thereby transformed into miniature Jamal-ud-Dins all
those who came into contact with him. He never claimed to be a
prophet or a renewer; yet no other man in our time has stirred the
soul of Islam more deeply than he. His spirit is still working in
the world of Islam and nobody knows where it will end.

It may, however, be asked what exactly was the objective of
these great Muslims? The answer is that they found the world of
Islam ruled by three main forces and they concentrated their whole
energy on creating a revolt against these forces:

Mullahism. The Ulama have always been a source
of great strength to Islam. But during the course of centuries,
especially since the destruction of Baghdad, they became extremely
conservative and would not allow any freedom of Ijtihad,
i.e., the forming of independent judgment in matters of law. The
Wahabi movement, which was a source of inspiration to the 19th
century Muslim reformers, was really a revolt against this rigidity
of the Ulama. Thus the first objective of the 19th century
Muslim reformers was a fresh orientation of the faith and a
freedom to reinterpret the law in the light of advancing
experience.

Mysticism. The masses of Islam were swayed by the
kind of mysticism which blinked actualities, enervated the people
and kept them steeped in all kinds of superstition. From its high
state as a force of spiritual education, mysticism had fallen down
to a mere means of exploiting the ignorance and the credulity of
the people. It gradually and invisibly unnerved the will of Islam
and softened it to the extent of seeking relief from rigorous
discipline of the law of Islam. The 19th century reformers rose in
revolt against this mysticism and called Muslims to the broad
daylight of the modern world. Not that they were materialists.
Their mission was to open the eyes of the Muslims to the spirit to
Islam which aimed at the conquest of matter and not flight from
it.

Muslim Kings. The gaze of Muslim kings gaze was solely fixed on their own
dynastic interests, and so long as these were protected, they
did not hesitate to sell their countries to the highest bidder. To
prepare the masses of Muslims for a revolt against such a state of
things in the world of Islam, was the special mission of Syed
Jamal-ud-Din Afghani.

It is not possible here to give a detailed account of the
transformation which these reformers brought about in the world of
Muslim thought and feeling. One thing, however, is clear. They
prepared to a great extent the ground for another set of men,
i.e., Zaghlul Pasha, Mustafa Kamal and Raza Shah. The reformers
interpreted, argued and explained; but the set of men who came
after them, although inferior in academic learning, were men who,
relying on their healthy instincts, had the courage to rush into
sun-lit space and do, even by force, what the new the conditions
of life demanded. Such men are liable to make mistakes; but the
history of nations shows that even their mistakes have sometimes
borne good fruit. In them it is not logic but life that struggles
restless to solve its own problems. It may be pointed out here
that Syed Ahmad Khan, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani and hundreds of
the latter's disciples in Muslim countries were not Westernized
Muslims. They were men who had sat on their knees before the
mullahs of the old school and had breathed the very
intellectual and spiritual atmosphere which they later sought to
reconstruct. Pressure of modern ideas may be admitted; but the
history thus briefly indicated above, clearly shows that the
upheaval which has come to Turkey and which is likely, sooner or
later, to come to other Muslim countries, is almost wholly
determined by the forces within. It is only the superficial
observer of the modern world of Islam who thinks that the present
crisis in the world of Islam is wholly due to the working of alien
forces.

Has then the world of Islam outside India, especially Turkey
abandoned Islam? Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru thinks that Turkey has
ceased to be a Muslim country. He does not seem to realise that
the question whether a person or a community has ceased to be a
member of Islam is, from the Muslim point of view, a purely legal
question and must be decided in view of the structural principles
of Islam. As long as a person is loyal to the two basic principles
of Islam, i.e., the Unity of God and Finality of the Holy Prophet,
not even the strictest mullah can turn him outside the pale
of Islam even though his interpretations of the law or of the text
of the Quran are believed to be erroneous. But perhaps Pandit
Jawahar Lal Nehru has in his mind the supposed or real innovations
which the Ataturk has introduced. Let us for a moment examine
these. Is it the development of a general materialist outlook in
Turkey which seems inimical to Islam? Islam has had too much of
renunciation; it is time for the Muslims to look to realities.
Materialism is a bad weapon against religion; but it is quite an
effective one against mullah-craft and sufi-craft, which
deliberately mystify the people with a view to exploit their
ignorance and credulity. The spirit of Islam is not afraid of its
contact with matter. Indeed the Quran says:

Forget not thy share in the world. (28:77)

It is difficult for a non-Muslim to understand
that, considering the history of the Muslim world during the last
few centuries, the progress of a materialist outlook is only a
form of self-realization. Is it then the abolition of the old
dress or the introduction of the Latin script? Islam as a religion
has no country; as a society it has no specific language, no
specific dress. Even the recitation of the Quran in Turkish is not
without some precedent in Muslim history. Personally I regard it
as a serious error of judgment; for the modern student of the
Arabic language and literature knows full well that the only
non-European language which has a future is Arabic. But the
reports are that the Turks have already abandoned the vernacular
recitation of the Quran. Is it then the abolition of polygamy or
the licentiate Ulama? According to the law of Islam the
Amir of a Muslim State has the power to revoke the "permissions"
of the law if he is convinced that they tend to cause social
corruption. As to the licentiate Ulama, I would certainly
introduce it in Muslim India if I had the power to do so. To the
inventions of the myth-making mullah is largely due the
stupidity of the average Muslim. In excluding him from the
religious life of the people the Ataturk has done what would have
delighted the heart of an Ibn Taimiyya or a Shah Wali Ullah. There
is a tradition of the Holy Prophet reported in the Mishkat
to the effect that only the Amir of the Muslim State and the
person or persons appointed by him, are entitled to preach to the
people. I do not know whether the Ataturk ever knew of this
tradition; yet it is striking how the light of his Islamic
conscience has illumined the zone of his action in this important
matter. The adoption of the Swiss code with its rule of
inheritance is certainly a serious error which has arisen out of
the youthful zeal for reform excusable in a people furiously
desiring to go ahead. The joy of emancipation from the fetters of
a long-standing priestcraft sometimes drives a people to untried
courses of action. But Turkey as well as the rest of the world of
Islam has yet to realise the hitherto unrevealed economic aspects
of the Islamic law of inheritance which Von Kremer describes as
the "supremely original branch of Muslim law." Is it the abolition
of the Caliphate or the separation of Church and State? In its
essence Islam is not Imperialism. In the abolition of the
Caliphate which since the days of Omayyads had practically become
a kind of Empire, it is only the spirit of Islam that has worked
out through the Ataturk. In order to understand the Turkish
Ijtihad in the matter of the Caliphate, we cannot but seek the
guidance of Ibn Khaldun — the great philosophical historian of
Islam, and the father of modern history. I can do no better than
to quote here a passage from my Reconstruction:

"Ibn Khaldun in his famous "Prolegomena" mentions three distinct
views of the idea of Universal Caliphate in Islam:

That Universal Imamate is a Divine institution, and is
consequently indispensable.

That it is merely a matter of expediency.

That there is no need of such an institution.

The last view was taken by the Khawarij, the early Republicans
of Islam. It seems that modern Turkey has shifted from the first
to the second view, i.e., to the view of the Mu'tazila who regarded
Universal Imamate as a matter of expediency only. The Turks argue
that in our political thinking we must be guided by our past
political experience which points unmistakably to the fact that
the idea of Universal Imamate has failed in practice. It was a
workable idea when the Empire of Islam was intact. Since the
breakup of this Empire independent political units have arisen.
The idea has ceased to be operative and cannot work as a living
factor in the organization of modern Islam."

Nor is the idea of separation of Church and State alien to
Islam. The doctrine of the major occultation of the Imam in a
sense effected this separation long ago in Shia Persia. The
Islamic idea of the division of the religious and political
functions of the State must not be confounded with the European
idea of the separation of Church and State. The former is only a
division of functions as is clear from the gradual creation in the
Muslim State of the offices of Sheikh-ul-Islam and Ministers; the
latter is based on the metaphysical dualism of spirit and matter.
Christianity began as an order of monks having nothing to do with
the affairs of the world; Islam was, from the very beginning, a
civil society with laws civil in their nature, though believed to
be revelational in origin. The metaphysical dualism on which the
European idea is based has borne bitter fruit among Western
nations. Many years ago a book was written in America called If
Christ Came to Chicago. In reviewing this book an American
author says:

"The lesson to be learned from Mr. Stead's book is that the
great evils from which humanity is suffering today, are evils that
can be handled only by religious sentiments; that the handling of
those evils has been in the great part surrendered to the State;
that the State has itself been delivered over to corrupt political
machines; that such machines are not only unwilling, but unable,
to deal with those evils; and that nothing but a religious
awakening of the citizens to their public duties can save
countless millions from misery and the State itself from
degradation."

In the history of Muslim political experience, this separation
has meant only a separation of functions, not of ideas. It cannot
be maintained that in Muslim countries the separation of Church
and State means the freedom of Muslim legislative activity from
the conscience of the people which has for centuries been trained
and developed by the spirituality of Islam. Experience alone will show how the idea will work in modern
Turkey. We can only hope that it will not be productive of the
evils which it has produced in Europe and America.

I have briefly discussed the above innovations more for the
sake of the Muslim reader than for Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. The
innovation specifically mentioned by the Pandit is the adoption by
the Turks and Persians of racial and nationalist ideals. He seems
to think that the adoption of such ideals means the abandonment of
Islam by Turkey and Persia. The student of history knows very well
that Islam was born at a time when the old principles of human
unification, such as blood relationship and throne-culture, were
failing. It, therefore, finds the principle of human unification
not in the blood and bones but in the mind of man. Indeed its
social message to mankind is: "Deracialise yourself or perish by
internecine war." It is no exaggeration to say that Islam looks
askance at nature's race-building plans and creates, by means of
its peculiar institutions, an outlook which would counteract the
race-building forces of nature. In the direction of human
domestication it has done in one thousand years far more important
work than Christianity and Buddhism ever did in two thousand years
or more. It is no less than a miracle that an Indian Muslim finds
himself at home in Morocco in spite of the disparity of race and
language. Yet it cannot be said that Islam is totally opposed to
race. Its history shows that in social reform it relies mainly on
its scheme for gradual deracialisation and proceeds on the lines
of least resistance. "Verily", says the Quran, "We have made you
into tribes and sub-tribes so that you may be identified; but the
best among you in the eye of God is he who is the purest in life."
(49:13) Considering the mightiness of the problem of race and the amount
of time which the deracialisation of mankind must necessarily
take, the attitude of Islam towards the problem of race, i.e.,
stooping to conquer without itself becoming a race-making factor,
is the only rational and workable attitude. There is a remarkable
passage in Sir Arthur Keith's little book, The Problem of Race,
which is worth quoting here:

"And now man is awakening to the fact that nature's primary
end — race-building —is incompatible with the necessities of the modern economic
world and is asking himself: What must I do? Bring race-building
as practised hitherto by nature to an end and have eternal peace?
Or permit nature to pursue her old course and have, as a necessary
consequence — War? Man has to choose the one course or the other.
There is no intermediate course possible."

It is, therefore, clear that if the Ataturk is inspired by
Pan-Turanianism, he is going not so much against the spirit of
Islam as against the spirit of the times. And if he is a believer
in the absoluteness of races, he is sure to be defeated by the
spirit of modern times which is wholly in keeping with the spirit
of Islam. Personally, however, I do not think that the Ataturk is
inspired by Pan-Turanianism, as I believe his Pan-Turanianism is
only a political retort to Pan-Slavonism, Pan-Germanism, or
Pan-Anglo Saxonism.

If the meaning of the above paragraph is well understood, it is
not difficult to see the attitude of Islam towards nationalist
ideals. Nationalism in the sense of love of one's country and even
readiness to die for its honour, is a part of the Muslim's faith;
it comes into conflict with Islam only when it begins to play the
role of a political concept and claims to be a principle of human
solidarity demanding that Islam should recede to the background of
a mere private opinion and cease to be a living factor in the
national life. In Turkey, Persia, Egypt and other Muslim countries
it will never become a problem. In these countries Muslims
constitute an overwhelming majority and their minorities, i.e.,
Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, according to the law of Islam,
are either "People of the Book" or "like the People of the Book"
with whom the law of Islam allows free social relations, including
matrimonial alliances. It becomes a problem for Muslims only in
countries where they happen to be in a minority, and nationalism
demands their complete self-effacement. In majority countries
Islam accommodates nationalism; for there Islam and nationalism
are practically identical; in minority countries it is justified
in seeking self-determination as a cultural unit. In either case,
it is thoroughly consistent with itself.

The above paragraphs briefly sum up the exact situation in the
world of Islam today. If this is properly understood it will
become clear that the fundamentals of Islamic solidarity are not
in any way shaken by any external or internal forces. The
solidarity of Islam, as I have explained before, consists in a
uniform belief in the two structural principles of Islam,
supplemented by the five well-known "practices of the faith."
These are the first essentials of Islamic solidarity which has, in
this sense, existed ever since the days of the Holy Prophet until
it was recently disturbed by the Bahais in Persia and the Qadianis
in India. It is a guarantee for a practically uniform spiritual
atmosphere in the world of Islam. It facilitates the political
combination of Muslim States, which combination may either assume
the form of a World State (ideal) or of a League of Muslim States,
or of a number of independent States whose pacts and alliances are
determined by purely economic and political considerations. That
is how the conceptual structure of this simple faith is related to
the process of time. The profundity of this relation can be
understood only in the light of certain verses of the Qu'ran which
it is not possible to explain here without drifting away from the
point immediately before us. Politically, then, the solidarity of
Islam is shaken only when Muslim States war on one another;
religiously, it is shaken only when Muslims rebel against any of
the basic beliefs and practices of the faith. It is in the
interest of this eternal solidarity that Islam cannot tolerate any
rebellious group within its fold. Outside the fold, such a group is
entitled to as much toleration as the followers of any other
faith. It appears to me that at the present moment Islam is
passing through a period of transition. It is shifting from one
form of political solidarity to some other form which the forces
of history have yet to determine. Events are so rapidly moving in
the modern world that it is almost impossible to make a
prediction. As to what will be the attitude towards non-Muslims of
a politically united Islam, if such a thing ever comes, is a
question which history alone can answer. All that I can say is
that, lying midway between Asia and Europe and being a synthesis
of Eastern and Western outlooks on life, Islam ought to act as a
kind of intermediary between the East and the West. But what if
the follies of Europe create an irreconcilable Islam? As things
are developing in Europe from day to day they demand a radical
transformation of Europe's attitude towards Islam. We can only
hope that political vision will not allow itself to be obscured by
the dictates of imperial ambition or economic exploitation. In so
far as India is concerned, I can say with perfect confidence that
the Muslims of India will not submit to any kind of political
idealism which would seek to annihilate their cultural entity.
Sure of this they may be trusted to know how to reconcile the
claims of religion and patriotism.

One word about His Highness the Agha Khan. What has led Pandit
Jawahar Lal Nehru to attack the Agha Khan, it is difficult for me to
discover. Perhaps he thinks that the Qadianis and the Ismailis fall
under the same category. He is obviously not aware that however the
theological interpretation of the Ismailis may err, they beleive in
the basic principles of Islam. It is true that they believe in a
perpetual Imamate; but the Imam according to them is not a recipient
of divine revelation. He is only an expounder of the law: It is only
the other day (vide the Star of Allahabad, March 12, 1934 ) that His
Highness the Agha Khan addressed his followers as follows:

"Bear witness that Allah is One. Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah.
Qu'ran is the Book of Allah. Ka'ba is the Qibla of all. You are Muslims
and should live with Muslims. Greet Muslims with Assalam-o-Alaikum. Give
your children Islamic names. Pray with Muslim congregations in mosques.
Keep fast regularly. Solemnize your marriages according to Islamic rules
of Nikah. Treat all Muslims as your brothers."

It is for the Pandit now to decide whether the Agha Khan represents
the solidarity of Islam or not.

Academy of Islamic Research And Publications is presenting this lucid and impressive
article by Dr. Sir Muhammad Iqbal to the English knowing people and hopes that
those who take the views of ulama as narrow-minded and bigoted will realise the
grave nature of the mischief – both religious and cultural – that Ahmadism tends to
cause to the body-politic of Islam ... His views as expressed in this brochure about
Mustafa Kamal had undergone a change as could be seen from Javed Namah
wherein the poet denounces Mustafa Kamal as a blind imitator of the West ...
Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi
President, Academy of Islamic Research and Publications Lucknow, October 24, 1974